Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#121

Post by slg » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

testfoobar wrote: post #65

BitwiseFool wrote: post #18

Reddit feels very Soviet lately. Everything is heavily manipulated and it seems like users are aware of that fact but are powerless to change anything.

I miss humor and authenticity from old reddit the most. E.g. the classic: "I also choose this guy's dead wife." or the AMA with the vacuum repair guy. These days just about any popular thread that I wander into, I see wide swaths of "deleted" comments. I'm sure they were deleted for many good and valid reasons. IMHO, reddit's aggressive moderation suppresses spontaneous comments and is off putting to lurkers. The wit…

That old reddit was also a haven for near child porn and other sorts of immoral or illicit content. Reddit needed strong moderation to become a functioning business and probably for the good of society as a whole. Maybe their current approach to moderation is overzealous, but let's not look at "old reddit" through rose-colored glasses.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#122

Post by defen » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #86

Rebelgecko wrote: post #52

Reddit has addressed the situation here, in a mealy mouthed sort of way: https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport/comments/mbqgx2 However they seem to be denying the accusations that admins (possibly including the individual in question) were manually editing contents containing her name. This whole situation is incredibly bizarre to me. In the first place, why would reddit hire a 23 year old admin whose greatest accompli…

> due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? You mean, her own father? The article says her fiancee also had been accused of saying he feels attracted to children but they claim his account was hacked, which may be true as no one in their right mind would tweet something like that.

> You mean, her own father?

To be clear, the connection is not just that he is her father. He raped and tortured a 10 year old girl in his own house while living there with Aimee. Then after he had been charged but not yet convicted, she hired him as her campaign manager.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#123

Post by ncallaway » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

postalrat wrote: post #76

andrewzah wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was digg as big as reddit is now? The issue for me is I don't know of other good places for long-form discussion and good link aggregation in general. Most of the time in smaller subreddits there aren't really any issues. What alternative is there to /r/AskHistorians? Etc.

Big as in #1? Yea.

Sure, but there's #1 in a market with 4% control of the market, vs #1 in a market with 85% control of the market.

The absolute rank doesn't really tell you where the next closest competitor is.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#124

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #86

Rebelgecko wrote: post #52

Reddit has addressed the situation here, in a mealy mouthed sort of way: https://www.reddit.com/r/modsupport/comments/mbqgx2 However they seem to be denying the accusations that admins (possibly including the individual in question) were manually editing contents containing her name. This whole situation is incredibly bizarre to me. In the first place, why would reddit hire a 23 year old admin whose greatest accompli…

> due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? You mean, her own father? The article says her fiancee also had been accused of saying he feels attracted to children but they claim his account was hacked, which may be true as no one in their right mind would tweet something like that.

I hate to be the guy that point this out, but no one should be Shamed for admitting they have a problem. Context matters whether they Were admitting attraction or endorsing the molestation of children

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#125

Post by znpy » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:16 PM UTC

I just want to comment again because something else came up in my mind.

I've learnt through the years that "about us", "company policies" and "our values" pages are mostly marketing bullshit.

Who we hire, fire and promote show the actual values of a company.

What does this mean regarding reddit, considering this situation?

Everybody should draw their own conclusion.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#126

Post by andyxor » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #37

BitwiseFool wrote: post #18

Reddit feels very Soviet lately. Everything is heavily manipulated and it seems like users are aware of that fact but are powerless to change anything.

“Soviet” feels like a dramatic overstatement.

i guess you're not a conservative, try saying something on reddit which doesn't align with their leftist hivemind narrative and see the reactions.

In fact even moderate liberals on reddit often complain of being attacked and banned for expressing even a slightly different opinion on supposedly politically neutral subs.

it would be fine if it only came from users, one can just ignore nasty DMs and such, the problem is admins and mods are heavily censoring opinions and ban all dissent, so echo-chamber effects are extremely strong.

And it's not only political sub-reddits, the entire site is promoting a particular political ideology in a most "soviet" way possible.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#127

Post by rory » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:17 PM UTC

ytq11 wrote: post #107

rory wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's less about policing and more about the size/content of the subreddit. I check a few sports subreddits and some about fantasy books. I would never notice all this drama if it weren't on HN, because those subreddits are focused enough on a particular subject to avoid getting caught up in meta-reddit drama / politics / controversy.

Being unaware of something is orthogonal to being affected by it. I was similar to you - mostly non-defaults, which made me miss how bad the larger site had become over time. It’s easy to overlook.

I don't think that's correct. Certainly you're less likely to be aware of something if you aren't affected by it. I think maybe we programmers just overuse the word orthogonal.

But regardless, as concerning as these policing decisions are, it's not clear how any of this stuff affects a reader of only apolitical, non-default subreddits.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#128

Post by sixothree » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

testfoobar wrote: post #65

BitwiseFool wrote: post #18

Reddit feels very Soviet lately. Everything is heavily manipulated and it seems like users are aware of that fact but are powerless to change anything.

I miss humor and authenticity from old reddit the most. E.g. the classic: "I also choose this guy's dead wife." or the AMA with the vacuum repair guy. These days just about any popular thread that I wander into, I see wide swaths of "deleted" comments. I'm sure they were deleted for many good and valid reasons. IMHO, reddit's aggressive moderation suppresses spontaneous comments and is off putting to lurkers. The wit…

Speaking of AMAs. I feel like these "Scheduled AMAs" broke the spirit of reddit very early on. I am referring to celebrity appearances where an account is created for the purpose of a two hour celebrity "appearance". I've always felt like if they aren't sticking around answering the long tail of questions then they shouldn't be doing an AMA. So I just don't participate.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#129

Post by duxup » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:18 PM UTC

BitwiseFool wrote: post #18

Reddit feels very Soviet lately. Everything is heavily manipulated and it seems like users are aware of that fact but are powerless to change anything.

I think the note should be added that the subreddit moderators can be just as 'soviet' and disconnected from the actual sub users....

I was a part of a few subs where sub moderators chose to participate in some reddit protest and go private.

The response to closing the sub temporarily, by the users you see in the sub was nearly 100% negative and a series of moderators who nobody ever sees came out to defend their choice simply demonstrated how disconnected from the sub they were (some didn't even seem to know the sub rules...).

There's a weird multi level stratification on reddit with admins, mods and users and I'm not convinced any of the 3 see eye to eye / understand each other.

Re: Reddit’s most popular subreddits go private in protest against ‘censorship’

#130

Post by i_haz_rabies » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #124

brabel wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> due to her connections to multiple pedophiles? You mean, her own father? The article says her fiancee also had been accused of saying he feels attracted to children but they claim his account was hacked, which may be true as no one in their right mind would tweet something like that.

I hate to be the guy that point this out, but no one should be Shamed for admitting they have a problem. Context matters whether they Were admitting attraction or endorsing the molestation of children

I hope you don't get downvoted for this. If you care about childrens welfare, you should be 100% in support of pedophiles coming forward and seeking help.